New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Since 2004, we’ve been observing the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town. If it’s true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?

Tuesday, April 04, 2017

Time to learn something: Happy birthday, Maya Angelou.

Maya Angelou was born 89 years ago today. Her obituary from the print edition of The Economist (June 7, 2014) is more than a death notice. It's an artistic rendering in itself, something for which the publication is renowned.

To this very day, when I receive my weekly copy, I turn first to the obituary.

Of course, there is more at Maya Angelou's web site. As The Economist observes, "it's hard to overstate her place in American culture life."

WHEN she was eight, Maya Angelou stopped speaking. That was the year her mother’s boyfriend raped her. But worse than that, worse than the terrible pain in her stomach, worse than the blood or the feeling that her thin hips were coming out of their sockets, was the knowledge that her voice had killed him. After she cried out against him in court, he was found kicked to death. She did not speak again, except to her brother, for five years ...

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How will we know that downtown revitalization is succeeding?

Downtown businessmen don't have to be told that racism is unacceptable.

Downtown coffee shops have enough business to be open evenings and weekends.